Cosmos Tours battles Monarch for brand

Hugh Morgan, the new chairman of Cosmos Tours & Cruises has warned he may start legal proceedings against Monarch Travel Group if it continues to “stonewall” his attempts to get the Cosmos Holidays name back

The new chairman of Cosmos Tours & Cruises has warned he may start legal proceedings against Monarch Travel Group if it continues to “stonewall” his attempts to get the Cosmos Holidays name back.

Hugh Morgan claimed the Cosmos Holidays brand was being left to “wither away” after it was dropped by Monarch in October.

The decision to sell holidays under the Monarch brand was made a year after the group was bought by Greybull Capital.

Cosmos Tours & Cruises, a separate company owned by the Mantegazza family, has continued to use the Cosmos name, which dates back to the 1960s.

Royalty fee

Executive chairman Morgan, who was appointed in November, said that when the Greybull deal was done, an agreement was made that Monarch could continue to use the Cosmos Holidays brand name until 2017, and pay a royalty fee for every passenger carried.

He said: “They wanted the continuity, which was understandable, but also included in that agreement was a clause that they would look after the name and cherish it, yet they dumped it almost immediately. I’m not bothered about the lost money. The most dangerous thing is that if you just let a name sit in a corner and gather dust and cobwebs, it begins to lose its value. Having it and not using it is mad. So we are saying to Monarch: ‘Give us Cosmos Holidays back!’. But for some reason they don’t want to. I am being stonewalled.”

54 years’ heritage

Morgan added: “Cosmos Holidays is a brand with 54 years’ heritage and we want to start using it again, but not necessarily in Monarch’s space. We could call the whole group Cosmos Holidays, for example, of which Cosmos Tours & Cruises is just a part.”

Morgan, who stepped down as managing director of Monarch Travel Group in 2014, warned that if Monarch continued to ignore his calls, he would “have to go down the legal route”.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I avoided it when they first dropped the name. I could have taken legal action then when they ditched it – leaving many people thinking the Cosmos brand everywhere was being scrapped, which wasn’t great for us – but I didn’t. But I will if they keep stonewalling me.”

A spokeswoman for Monarch Travel Group said: “Monarch has a legal agreement with the Mantegazza family over the use of the Cosmos brand and we are continuing to adhere to it. We remain happy to engage constructively with them.”